[KS] Indonesian tribe picks Korean alphabet as official writing system

Henny Savenije webmaster at henny-savenije.pe.kr
Thu Aug 6 14:05:08 EDT 2009


I think it's equally interesting to note that before the Europeans 
came to Indonesia, the Indonesians were using the Arab script. Which 
obviously didn't cover the linguistic needs of the Indonesians as 
well. They developed their own version of the Arab script but it 
gradually phased out throughout the 20th century by the Roman alpabeth
http://books.google.co.kr/books?id=5i1aMcmLWlMC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=indonesia+arab+script&source=bl&ots=5-IfblGWe7&sig=n7ALdHAu8SNbv9oQ49keJb6-XOk&hl=en&ei=Hhl7StLtE4yGkAXim53_Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

http://www.let.uu.nl/~Martin.vanBruinessen/personal/publications/kitab_kuning.htm
For a more popular description

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawi_script




At 02:01 AM 8/7/2009, you wrote:
>I certainly agree with Kevin that this is very interesting, and I
>share his curiosity over how Hangul works with the linguistics of this
>language. It would be nice also to know the name of the tribe and the
>language (not just its location--which is really what you might call
>remote) so that people could check it out in the
>anthropological/linguistic literature.
>
>Beyond that I hope this leads some journalist, preferably of
>Indoneasian background, to check this situation out on the ground in
>Indonesia. So far we have news only from a Korean news agency,
>informed by a Korean cultural organization with a strong nationalist
>agenda, and featuring a book written in the Hangulized
>language/dialect that could only have been printed and published in
>Korea.
>
>In such circumstances one thinks of many more questions to ask.
>
>Gari Ledyard
>
>kevin parks <kevin at macosx.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2009/08/06/56/0302000000AEN20090806001200315F.HTML
>>
>>
>>That is pretty interesting. But I could have swore there were other
>>instances in the past where other cultures attempted to adopt Han'gu(l
>>/ Choso(n'gu(l as their written language only to have it be rejected,
>>no? I don't recall as it has been a long time since I read Kim-Renaud,
>>Y-K. (ed) 1997. The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure.
>>
>>Anyway, this is a very interesting language development that *gasp* for
>>once doesn't involve romanizations.
>>
>>I wonder what the fit will be like or if their language, like modern
>>South Korean will be filled with lots of "eu" and such to try to
>>account for combinations and phonemes not availble in Han'gu(l. I think
>>of what happens with such loans words such as stress ???? which is hard
>>to spell and sounds bad. I am quite curious to know what their language
>>sounds like and how this will work.
>>
>>
>>cheers,
>>
>>kevin
>
>

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